King Coltrane
King
I just played what might be the most fun CiV game I've ever had. I did a legendary/emperor/duel/pangaea/4 CS/high water level game as the Aztecs. I just wanted to mess around and see how highly promoted i could get my jaguars. I can upload pictures if people want.
So I built about 8 jags and declared war on the 2 nearest city states. I parked the jags in nearby forest hills and let the XP rack up. I went straight Honor just for fun... and am I glad I did (but i'll get to that in a second). I had 2 "armies", of 4 jags, 1 catapult, and a GG per city and I just rotated them in and out for a LONG time as they slowly levelled up.
I completely ignored infrastructure and economy. I let myself get to about -10 gpt and let my science completely stop, because I really didnt care. I build a few wonders when i hit the max unit cap. I built only 1 worker. I built no settlers. So it was just my capital enjoying all that culture from unit kills.
At one point i met my neighbour, Casimir, which I was not thrilled about. I knew one day I'd see swarms of Winged Hussars and wasn't looking forward to that. But for the moment we were sorta friendly.
As my jaguars slowly became outmatched by the CS's city strength, x-bows, and galleasses, I realized I needed to start working on my economy if i wanted to continue my stupid little game. At almost the same turn I got the message that Casimir had entered the Renaissance, I saw a force of his pikemen wandering about. I grew VERY worried. I wasn't even medieval. I think the tech I had stagnated on was MINING!
It was about this time that Casimir declared war. I had a very defensible position, with a long river in the south of my lands and 2 mountain passes to the west (the direction of Casimir). However, I couldn't build citadels with my many generals because again, i didn't have mining! Instead I engaged him in the forests near the city states to harass him, while the bulk of his force marched on my capital with pikes and composite bowmen.
Realizing how screwed I was I changed things up and started hunting barb camps with more intensity. I took small forces of 1 super jag (rough terrain 3, march, woodsman, heal 1 and 2, blitz, and cover 1 and 2) and 1 super cat (barrage 3, logistics, range, city attack, march) and timed the assaults so that I could take out 2 camps at the same time and get enough money for 2 turns of science. (of course I also got the money for unit kills, hence why I'm glad i went full Honor). I supplemented this with building archers and disbanding them for money. I was just scraping by, taking out his army, and taking a LONG time to get just a few techs. I sacrificed a worker so that I could find Warsaw and FINALLY put my spy to work getting techs.
One of my earliest priorities after I got mining and some citadels up was to get iron working to upgrade the jags. Of course there was not a single source on my side of the planet and Poland controlled all the rest. So I gave up on that idea. I just used superior tactics to hold back the better Polish forces without loss. I was having fun, watching my jags defeat his knights and lancers!
But I knew that I couldn't maintain my advanced position so far from my territory, so I withdrew to the citadels. I was pretty much impregnable, but couldn't bring the fight to Poland or make peace with the city states, as they had become his allies.
So I hunkered down, killed units when I could to keep my economy afloat, and stole techs like MAD to help my economy. But I also decided not to build a new army. I wanted to just use jags! To maintain this force of increasingly useless troops, I founded 2 cities to help with income and lock down my nations flanks, but only after some key national wonders had been built. I built a galley and raided Casimir's trade routes to further help with my science and economy. Although I had small gold reserves, I was still about -30 gpt at this point. But the situation was getting better and better. I was even able to upgrade my 2 super catapults to trebs and then cannons!
I was feeling good with the the equilibrium I had established when all of a sudden the Winged Hussars started to attack. My mountain pass citadels were useless, as the hussars just pushed my jaguars back and then pillaged the citadel! It was a tough fight to keep my position, but I managed to do it without losing a jaguar and without building better units.
About this time, I started to see riflemen attempt amphibious invasions on my western city. Thankfully my cannons were up to the task and repulsed attacks that had rifles, hussars, cannons, and ironclads!
For some reason I decided to check the culture advisor, and I'm glad I did because it turns out the Casimir was SIX turns away from a culture victory! And I think he had been for a while... it turns out the culture i was getting from unit kills was the only thing preventing him from winning! As long as I killed about 2 units per turn, the counter wouldn't decrease. With this pressure, I shifted to a heavy culture focus in the capital, which bought me some time (pushed the counter up to 26 turns) and also got Dynamite from my spy! I had a fair bit of money at this point and upgraded my 2 cannons and produced another artillery unit to help hold the line in the north against what had now become great war infantry, hussars, artillery, and battleships. it was crazy assault after assault. Thankfully though, by killing 4-6 units per turn, i was getting a lot of money and culture and the culture victory counter was down to 40 turns.
But the crisis was FAR from over. Soon after I got artillery, Casimir entered the Atomic Era. I was then VERY aware that his 13 votes would not only overwhelm my measly 5 votes, but within 20 turns, he would win a diplo victory! AHH! I sent out a privateer to find the other 2 city states and the rest of his cities while I bought constabularies and police stations in my 3 cities. With my newly promoted spy force, I LUCKILY staged successful coups in 2 city states, preventing him from winning with 3 turns to spare! I also, took out one of his city states because it was the sole source of oil near me and was also easily defensible.
But I knew that his extra 2 votes would still allow his victory in a few dozen turns. His sole city state ally had 0% chance of a successful coup, and so I needed to look into other options.
I built a few battleships and sent them with my single privateer to take Krakow, which MAGICALLY had about half of his wonders including the forbidden palace! I got sidetracked when I had to liberate my city state ally and defend it's land for a few turns. But finally, I took the city with 5 turns to spare!
I now had the majority of votes, but not enough for the victory, so I took my super artillery, my logistics battleships, and my FINALLY upgraded super-jags-turned-infantry and finally took his capital!
This was such a satisfying game because I had no intention of playing it out or winning, and did not play optimally at all. I just sorta played things out as they went, which is how older civ games felt to me, which i miss. I had to fight hard to prevent pretty much every victory condition: my science was laughable, and he was only a few turns from winning diplo, culture, and domination victories at various points in the game. I really got to experience all facets of the game.
So I built about 8 jags and declared war on the 2 nearest city states. I parked the jags in nearby forest hills and let the XP rack up. I went straight Honor just for fun... and am I glad I did (but i'll get to that in a second). I had 2 "armies", of 4 jags, 1 catapult, and a GG per city and I just rotated them in and out for a LONG time as they slowly levelled up.
I completely ignored infrastructure and economy. I let myself get to about -10 gpt and let my science completely stop, because I really didnt care. I build a few wonders when i hit the max unit cap. I built only 1 worker. I built no settlers. So it was just my capital enjoying all that culture from unit kills.
At one point i met my neighbour, Casimir, which I was not thrilled about. I knew one day I'd see swarms of Winged Hussars and wasn't looking forward to that. But for the moment we were sorta friendly.
As my jaguars slowly became outmatched by the CS's city strength, x-bows, and galleasses, I realized I needed to start working on my economy if i wanted to continue my stupid little game. At almost the same turn I got the message that Casimir had entered the Renaissance, I saw a force of his pikemen wandering about. I grew VERY worried. I wasn't even medieval. I think the tech I had stagnated on was MINING!
It was about this time that Casimir declared war. I had a very defensible position, with a long river in the south of my lands and 2 mountain passes to the west (the direction of Casimir). However, I couldn't build citadels with my many generals because again, i didn't have mining! Instead I engaged him in the forests near the city states to harass him, while the bulk of his force marched on my capital with pikes and composite bowmen.
Realizing how screwed I was I changed things up and started hunting barb camps with more intensity. I took small forces of 1 super jag (rough terrain 3, march, woodsman, heal 1 and 2, blitz, and cover 1 and 2) and 1 super cat (barrage 3, logistics, range, city attack, march) and timed the assaults so that I could take out 2 camps at the same time and get enough money for 2 turns of science. (of course I also got the money for unit kills, hence why I'm glad i went full Honor). I supplemented this with building archers and disbanding them for money. I was just scraping by, taking out his army, and taking a LONG time to get just a few techs. I sacrificed a worker so that I could find Warsaw and FINALLY put my spy to work getting techs.
One of my earliest priorities after I got mining and some citadels up was to get iron working to upgrade the jags. Of course there was not a single source on my side of the planet and Poland controlled all the rest. So I gave up on that idea. I just used superior tactics to hold back the better Polish forces without loss. I was having fun, watching my jags defeat his knights and lancers!
But I knew that I couldn't maintain my advanced position so far from my territory, so I withdrew to the citadels. I was pretty much impregnable, but couldn't bring the fight to Poland or make peace with the city states, as they had become his allies.
So I hunkered down, killed units when I could to keep my economy afloat, and stole techs like MAD to help my economy. But I also decided not to build a new army. I wanted to just use jags! To maintain this force of increasingly useless troops, I founded 2 cities to help with income and lock down my nations flanks, but only after some key national wonders had been built. I built a galley and raided Casimir's trade routes to further help with my science and economy. Although I had small gold reserves, I was still about -30 gpt at this point. But the situation was getting better and better. I was even able to upgrade my 2 super catapults to trebs and then cannons!
I was feeling good with the the equilibrium I had established when all of a sudden the Winged Hussars started to attack. My mountain pass citadels were useless, as the hussars just pushed my jaguars back and then pillaged the citadel! It was a tough fight to keep my position, but I managed to do it without losing a jaguar and without building better units.
About this time, I started to see riflemen attempt amphibious invasions on my western city. Thankfully my cannons were up to the task and repulsed attacks that had rifles, hussars, cannons, and ironclads!
For some reason I decided to check the culture advisor, and I'm glad I did because it turns out the Casimir was SIX turns away from a culture victory! And I think he had been for a while... it turns out the culture i was getting from unit kills was the only thing preventing him from winning! As long as I killed about 2 units per turn, the counter wouldn't decrease. With this pressure, I shifted to a heavy culture focus in the capital, which bought me some time (pushed the counter up to 26 turns) and also got Dynamite from my spy! I had a fair bit of money at this point and upgraded my 2 cannons and produced another artillery unit to help hold the line in the north against what had now become great war infantry, hussars, artillery, and battleships. it was crazy assault after assault. Thankfully though, by killing 4-6 units per turn, i was getting a lot of money and culture and the culture victory counter was down to 40 turns.
But the crisis was FAR from over. Soon after I got artillery, Casimir entered the Atomic Era. I was then VERY aware that his 13 votes would not only overwhelm my measly 5 votes, but within 20 turns, he would win a diplo victory! AHH! I sent out a privateer to find the other 2 city states and the rest of his cities while I bought constabularies and police stations in my 3 cities. With my newly promoted spy force, I LUCKILY staged successful coups in 2 city states, preventing him from winning with 3 turns to spare! I also, took out one of his city states because it was the sole source of oil near me and was also easily defensible.
But I knew that his extra 2 votes would still allow his victory in a few dozen turns. His sole city state ally had 0% chance of a successful coup, and so I needed to look into other options.
I built a few battleships and sent them with my single privateer to take Krakow, which MAGICALLY had about half of his wonders including the forbidden palace! I got sidetracked when I had to liberate my city state ally and defend it's land for a few turns. But finally, I took the city with 5 turns to spare!
I now had the majority of votes, but not enough for the victory, so I took my super artillery, my logistics battleships, and my FINALLY upgraded super-jags-turned-infantry and finally took his capital!
This was such a satisfying game because I had no intention of playing it out or winning, and did not play optimally at all. I just sorta played things out as they went, which is how older civ games felt to me, which i miss. I had to fight hard to prevent pretty much every victory condition: my science was laughable, and he was only a few turns from winning diplo, culture, and domination victories at various points in the game. I really got to experience all facets of the game.
